The Tower (4 page)

The Jesuit shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Dr Garrett, but Father Antonelli’s state of health will not allow him to receive visitors.’

‘Can’t you even tell me where he is?’

‘No, unfortunately not.’ The priest rose from his chair, walked around the solid walnut desk that separated them and led Philip to the door. ‘Please believe me when I say that I truly regret being unable to help you,’ he said again with a polite smile. ‘I wish you good luck, nonetheless.’ He closed the door behind his guest and went back to his desk.

P
HILIP WALKED DOWN
the long waxed corridor that led to the exit with quick, nervous steps. He was soon back out on the street.

The sunlight blinded him and brought home the reality of his failure. His first attempt had led him straight down a dead end. All he could do was go back to his father’s book and try to decipher the remaining messages.

He reached Piazza del Popolo and hailed a cab, but just as he was about to get in he stopped suddenly and waved the vehicle off. On the other side of the square, near the start of Via del Corso, he’d spotted a man in a light-grey suit holding a briefcase under his arm. It was an old friend with whom he’d studied for a couple of years in Paris. He hurried to catch up with him, laid a hand on his shoulder and called his name: ‘Giorgio!’

‘What the devil . . .’ the man answered. ‘Philip Garrett! Where have you crawled out from?’

‘Do you have half an hour for a cup of coffee with an old friend?’

‘I swore to my wife that I’d go with her to pick out a dress for her sister’s wedding, but she’ll have to wait. Good grief, Garrett, I can’t believe it’s you!’

They sat at Rosati’s café and Philip ordered two coffees. In ten minutes they had gone over the last ten years of their lives. Giorgio Liverani had married and had two children, a boy and a girl, whose photographs he carried in his wallet. What’s more, he had become the curator of the classical art collection in the Vatican Museums.

‘I knew you’d been working there for years. Congratulations! When were you promoted?’

‘Last year. What about you?’

‘I’ve taken a year’s sabbatical from the Musée. I’m trying to track down my father.’

Giorgio Liverani dropped his gaze. ‘I’d heard he was . . .’

‘Dead? That may very well be,’ replied Philip. ‘Or perhaps not. I’ve received a . . . sign that he may be alive.’

‘I hope you’re successful. Your father was a great man.’

Philip looked him straight in the eye. ‘Giorgio, maybe you can help me.’

‘Me? Well . . . of course, but how?’

‘Ten years ago my father worked for a while here in Rome with a man who was then the director of the Vatican Library, a Jesuit named Antonelli. Have you ever heard of him?’

‘Giuseppe Antonelli. I remember him well. He’s from Alatri, the town I was born in. Father Antonelli retired some time ago. Health problems, I believe.’

‘I know. I’ve been to the Society’s headquarters, but they won’t tell me where he is.’

‘I’m sorry, but I have no idea where he is myself.’

‘Do you know who has taken his job?’

‘I don’t think a successor has been nominated. The acting director is the prefect of the Vatican Observatory. Father Ernesto Boni.’

‘The famous mathematician? Do you know him personally? Can you get me an appointment with him?’

‘I’ve met him a few times, at the meetings of the Pontifical Academy. I can try.’

‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Giorgio. It’s a matter of life and death.’

‘I believe you. I know how close you were to your father. His disappearing like that . . . so suddenly . . .’

Philip lowered his head.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring back sad memories.’

‘You mustn’t be. I believe that my father deliberately chose to drop out of sight ten years ago. His hypotheses interpreting Genesis in an anthropological way had stirred up a hornets’ nest and greatly challenged his scientific credibility. He felt besieged by the whole academic community. He went into the desert, I think, to find definitive evidence for his theories. And maybe even to face up to himself. The desert is like a crucible: it melts away everything that is not in perfect equilibrium, so all that’s left is the true stuff that a man is made of.’

‘You said that your father has sent you a sign . . .’

‘I think so.’

‘Maybe he wants to tell you what he’s found.’

‘Maybe. Or maybe he wants to pass on what he’s learned, so he’ll be free to continue whatever it is he’s up to, delving deeper into the unknown. If I know him, that’s more likely.’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘On Via Aventino, at Pensione Diana.’

‘Nice place. I’ll call you there as soon as I’ve arranged a meeting with Father Boni.’

‘I’m very grateful.’

‘Well,’ said Liverani, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to go. I’ll be getting an earful from my wife.’

‘Giorgio?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you have any idea why they don’t want me to meet Father Antonelli?’

‘No. There may not be any particular reason. I’d heard that he had been behaving strangely before he left his post . . . but maybe it was because of his illness.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I have to run. I’m really sorry. I would have liked to spend more time with you. If you’re staying in Rome for a few days, maybe we could get together again. We could go out, go somewhere for dinner. You know, seeing you has made me feel good . . . and bad, actually. It’s taken me back to our boyhood dreams, our plans for adventure. Now look at me. Eight hours a day behind a desk. Every blessed day. Christmas in the mountains and August at the sea. Every year. Every blessed year.’

‘You have a beautiful family.’

‘Right,’ said Giorgio. ‘I’ve got a beautiful family.’ He stood and walked with a brisk step to the tram stop.

T
ATTERED CLOUDS
galloped across the leaden sky that hung low over Bernini’s grandiose square, over the pallor of the deserted colonnade, over the solitary spire, as straight and unyielding as the finger of God. Angry gusts of wind mixed showers of rain with the spray from the fountains and sent ripples through the veil of water that covered the basalt pavement as if it were the surface of a narrow inland sea. At every flash of lightning, the black mirror reflected the fleeting light towards the dome and its white bulk was illuminated against the night sky, witnessed only by the mute throng of statues crowning the top of the Vatican portico.

A black car passed the Leonine Walls and stopped in front of the San Damaso Gate. A Swiss guardsman wearing an oilcloth cloak left his sentry box in the driving rain to peer through the windscreen. He recognized the driver despite the incessant motion of the squeaky wipers, then backed up to examine the occupant of the rear seat: a man of about fifty with a hat pulled low over his eyes. The guard waved them on and the car entered the courtyard, where a man in a long raincoat awaited them with an umbrella.

He leaned over as soon as the driver had opened the back door so the newcomer would not get wet. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘I’m Father Hogan. This way, please.’

The man gave a short nod, turned up his coat collar and followed the priest towards the big bronze pinecone which sparkled like a diamond in the downpour. They turned left to enter the Papal Palace and then walked outdoors again through the gardens, heading towards the Vatican Observatory, whose lit dome rose above the wind-tossed trees.

They climbed the stairs to the very top of the observatory. The large telescope at the centre of the vault was pointed at the sky although not a single star was visible through the thick blanket of cloud. An elderly priest was sitting on a stool, taking notes on a pad.

Father Hogan turned to his guest. ‘Allow me to introduce Father Boni, my direct superior.’

They shook hands and then the three men walked towards a complex instrument that was emitting an insistent signal: a distinct, modulated sound.

The man removed his coat and hat and turned his ear towards the sound. ‘This is it, isn’t it?’

Father Boni nodded. ‘This is it, Mr Marconi.’

Guglielmo Marconi approached the empty stool in front of the instrument and sat down. He put on a set of headphones and leaned in close, eyes shut in absorption. The fingers of both his hands were pointed at his temples, as if to focus all his powers of concentration there. He sat for a long time without moving, listening, then took off the headphones.

Father Boni drew close with an anxious, questioning expression. ‘What is it? Or . . . who?’

The scientist put a hand to his brow as if searching for a plausible explanation, then shook his head. ‘It cannot come from any source known to man.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That there is no transmitter on earth capable of launching this signal.’

Father Hogan’s bewilderment was clear as the scientist turned back towards the telescope. ‘You’re not saying that it comes . . . from out there?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘That’s exactly what he’s saying,’ observed Father Boni wryly. ‘Isn’t it?’

Marconi continued to listen for hours, occasionally consulting the chronometer he had placed on the table. ‘There’s something I just can’t understand,’ he kept repeating. He suddenly sprang up from his stool as if an idea had flashed through his mind and turned to the elderly priest. ‘Father Boni, you are one of the world’s most brilliant mathematicians. I need you to construct a system of equations for me, right now, in which the two trajectories of a parabola and an ellipse interact. The unknown is the point at which the speed of translation along the parabola meets with the speed of rotation along the ellipse . . .’

‘That can be done,’ replied Father Boni, ‘as long as we have some information on the parabola. But I don’t really understand . . .’

‘Well, you see, the signal is intermittent but the interval between one emission and the next is shrinking, albeit by a very small amount. I’m wondering if this depends on the “free will” of the transmitter or if it is externally conditioned.’

‘Conditioned?’

‘Exactly. It may be that the source of the signal we’re hearing is not, in reality, a simple transmitter that is awaiting a return signal from another fixed source at an extreme distance. This second source may actually be approaching along a parabola, which would explain the reduction in transmission intervals. You see, each time our hypothetical repeater sends us the signal, it’s from a different position along an ellipse upon which it is travelling at a speed infinitely slower than the signal, which arrives at the speed of light. The solution of the system would allow me to establish if another source really does exist, how far away it is and at what rate it is approaching.’

‘I can try,’ replied Father Boni.

‘Good,’ said Marconi. ‘Very good.’ And he went back to his listening.

At every pulse of the signal, the scientist jotted down a sequence of data, scribbled in a nervous hand, which Father Boni reinterpreted, making his own calculations on a large white sheet of paper spread out on the table next to the apparatus. Every once in a while the two men would raise their heads from the sheet and their eyes would meet in a kind of direct, intense transmission of thought. They went on for hours as the storm began to abate and wide rents opened between the ravaged clouds.

The basilica bells had tolled five times when Father Boni got up and went over to the telescope. He looked through the eyepiece. The point of light he saw twinkling in space did not appear on any map of the cosmos. ‘Oh, my God,’ he gasped. ‘Good God . . . what is that?’

Marconi came close and looked through the eyepiece himself. ‘That’s where it’s coming from,’ he said. ‘There’s no doubt. That could be the repeater.’ Then, with a start, ‘It’s gone out! Look for yourself. The light has gone out but it’s still transmitting.’

He turned back to the apparatus and began to write again, feverishly.

By dawn, the two men had filled the sheet of paper with a sequence of complicated calculations and a pencilled drawing. They both raised their eyes from the table in the same instant as they acknowledged the truth.

Marconi spoke. ‘It’s an object suspended at approximately half a million kilometres above the northern hemisphere which is revolving at the same speed as the earth, but it may be merely a repeater.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Father Boni, ‘the true source seems to coincide with a point in the constellation Scorpio which is approaching along the parabola at an amazing and constantly increasing speed.’

Father Hogan finally drew close. ‘Are you saying that there’s some sort of machine or something up there that’s sending us a message . . . an intelligent message?’

Marconi nodded. ‘I believe so.’

‘But what’s the message? And who’s sending it?’

The scientist shook his head. A bead of sweat on his temple and a tousled lock of hair on his forehead were the only signs of the sleepless night. ‘It’s expressed in a binary system, but I can’t manage to decipher it . . . It’s in code. See this symbol that recurs every three sequences of signals? See? This has got to be the key . . . a key I don’t have.’ He glanced at Father Boni with an enigmatic expression. ‘Perhaps you . . . you can find the key.’

Father Boni dropped his eyes in silence.

T
HE DOOR
of the Vatican Observatory opened and two men crossed the garden with a brisk step, passing among the age-old cedars dripping rain. The night sky was paling.

‘Will you inform the Holy Father?’ asked Marconi when they were back at the deserted square.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Father Hogan, ‘but we’ll have to finish our calculations first. It will take time. And there’s no saying that we’ll come to a definite conclusion. Thank you, Mr Marconi. Your help has been of enormous value, but we must ask you to maintain the most rigorous silence about what you have seen and heard here tonight.’

The scientist nodded and then lifted his eyes to the sky, where the last storm clouds were moving swiftly away. The stars were fading out one by one. His car materialized from the dark, silent as a ghost, and stopped alongside him.